Previously known dispensing devices, in particular, piston dispensing devices, have been used for the filling of dairy product containers, for example, yoghurt cups. For each row of cups conveyed past the container filling location, there has typically been one filling device.
The known filling devices have, arranged in a axis-parallel manner one behind the other, a dispensing cylinder and a valve cylinder; the valve cylinder typically projects axially below the bottom of the dispensing cylinder with its product exit located axially for feeding product to a single cup.
The lower dead space of the dispensing cylinder, to which the dispensing piston reaches only during the cleaning phase, communicates with the interior of the valve cylinder by way of a radially extended flow channel. The flow opening is located thus at an axial elevation between the lower and upper limiting positions of a valve piston.
The known valves are for this reason quite troublesome since there are generally two valve pistons on a single valve stem, both of which are critical for the dispensing operation.
The upper valve piston works in conjunction with an upper region of the valve cylinder and the lower valve piston works in conjunction with the lower region of the valve cylinder.
In the known dispensing devices, the product inflow takes place from above into the upper axial valve cylinder region. The product outflow subsequently takes place from the lower axial valve cylinder region. The space in the lower part of the dispensing cylinder which lies below the filling surface, minus the dead space, represents the dispensing volume. The upper space in the dispensing cylinder above the dispensing piston is not involved in the product flow and serves only during the cleaning phase as a receiver for the cleaning fluid; otherwise it is nonfunctional during the regular dispensing process.